Put your bread on Fred for top goalscorer

13Jun 2013

Confederations Cup 2013

Dan Fitch picks his best value top scorer bets for the Confederations Cup and fancies Fred to outgun Neymar...

The Confederations Cup doesn't get football fans as excited as a World Cup or a continental international tournament, which is a shame. Because the one thing that the Confederations Cup does offer is goals galore.

Due to the nature of the competition, a number of mismatches are routinely thrown up in a way that you just don't see in the stuffy, evenly-matched world of the European Championship.

You'd think that the goals would dry up when it comes to the business end of the tournament, but it seems that by then the teams involved are simply too committed to reckless attacking play to revert to type.

The last two finals for instance have both produced five goals, while previous finals have produced six and seven.

So who will be scoring the majority of these goals? History says that it will be a Brazilian. In four of the last six tournaments it has been a boy from Brazil that has carried off the Golden Shoe. Romario won it with seven and Ronaldino with six, while Adriano and Luis Fabiano were both victorious with five. That gives you an idea of the sort of figures we're looking for during this tournament.

Neymar is the tournament favourite to emerge as top scorer at 8.6. The new Barcelona signing has scored an impressive 20 goals in 33 games, but it's worth noting that only three of these have come in his seven appearances for Brazil during 2013.

Perhaps a better bet is Fred, who is priced at 10.0. Fred has scored a goal in four of his five appearances for Brazil in 2013. They have come against good opposition too. Two were scored against England, with the others coming against Russia and Italy. Leandro Damiao has pulled out of the squad with injury and been replaced by Jo (yes, that Jo), leaving Fred as the only real out-and-out striker in Brazil's squad (that isn't Jo).

While Brazil are in a pretty competitive group alongside Italy, Mexico and Japan, Uruguay have things slightly easier and it is Luis Suarez who is the second favourite at 9.6.

Aside from Spain, Uruguay won't hold much fear against the likes of Tahiti and a young Nigerian side. Suarez has plundered 32 goals in 64 games for his country. Only six of these goals have come since the start of 2012, but then it's not everyday that you get to play against Tahiti.

Edison Cavani is out at 11.0, which is not the greatest value when you consider that he has only scored 13 goals in 49 international appearances. Though prolific for Napoli, Cavani has often found himself shunted out to the right to make space in the team for the aging Diego Forlan, who is himself priced at 19.5.

For the Spanish, Fernando Torres and David Villa are both priced at 10.0 which we can only describe as the 'Tahiti effect'. As is also the case with Roberto Soldado at 14.0, you'd have to question backing a Spanish striker, considering that it's highly likely that at some point Vincente del Bosque will decide not to play with one.

Better value then is a punt on Barcelona's Pedro. At a likely price of around 30.0 it might be too much to expect Pedro to finish as top scorer, but odds of around 5.0 on him finishing in the top four, hold some appeal.

Pedro has scored 12 goals in 26 games for Spain, but interestingly ten of these goals have come within the last 12 months. This includes a brace against Spain's Group B opponents Uruguay. He could easily get three or four goals during this tournament.